


A Study in Paradoxes

by exbex



Series: Jim/John and the aftermath [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock reunites with Victor Trevor. John gives it a nudge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Paradoxes

Sherlock has no room in his life for new uncertainties. Sherlock has a rather large hole in his life that can ostensibly be filled by Victor Trevor. These things cannot both be true, since they contradict one another, and yet, here he is.

“So I was right about Harrison, then?” Victor’s tea is too hot, he keeps bringing it to his lips, then setting it down. He’s not upset about the confirmation of the embezzling employee, and his attention is focused entirely on Sherlock.

“You were.” Sherlock hasn’t touched his own tea. Victor hadn’t needed him to solve this case, really. As it was, it registered below a four as far as interest. Yet Sherlock and John had traveled to Norfolk for a case that took a matter of hours to solve.

“Dinner?” Victor changes the subject so abruptly that it causes Sherlock to blink in confusion. “I dislike discussing business outside of business hours, and if you’re as famished as I am…” Victor is already out of his seat. “Please. It’s the least I can do. Granted, I won’t shirk on payment, Sherlock, but I’d like to…” Victor has come a very long way from his university days, and the man standing in front of Sherlock now is confident, poised, but he hesitates.

“Are you…asking me on a date?”

Victor doesn’t break his gaze. “You didn’t come here for work, Sherlock. I didn’t really ask you here to solve a case that I could have figured out on my own.”

Sherlock stands. He wants to bolt for the door, he wants to leave Victor’s house and go wherever Victor bids him go. These things should not both be true, since they contradict one another, and yet….

“That would be…good.”

**

Victor is characteristically frank in his curiosity about Sherlock’s life since university. Sherlock would like to return such frank curiosity, but he finds himself uncharacteristically hesitant. But then, the presence of Victor in his life was always an anomaly. 

Sherlock is trying to formulate questions when his thoughts are interrupted by a text.

Think you can stay at Victor’s flat tonight? I met someone, and I’d like to have the room to ourselves. JW

It’s not even an attempt at a good lie. Nor is it even a good attempt (if it’s an attempt at all), to disguise such an obvious motivation. The only thing that’s bewildering about it is that John cares about such aspects of Sherlock’s life.

“Everything alright?”

Sherlock looks up. “My apologies. I…it seems that I’ve just been kicked out of our hotel room for the night.”

Victor’s eyebrows quirk upwards. “I see. Well, I do have an extra bedroom. It’ll give us more opportunity to catch up.”

Sherlock waits until they’re sipping dessert wine before he asks the important question. It’s not the question itself that’s bothering him, but his reasons behind asking. He’s nervous; the answer may not be what he’s anticipating, may be…disappointing. “Why are you still running your father’s business?”

Victor shrugs. “Just because my father used it to cover his money laundering doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate business.”

“You hate it. It bores you; you don’t find value or meaning in it.”

“Well, what else would I do?”

It’s an infuriating answer. Victor is brilliant.

“Anything you want.” Sherlock forces himself to stay at rest, not lean forward, to keep that distance between them.

Victor takes a rather more forceful than necessary drink of wine, probably in order to avoid addressing Sherlock’s statement. But he does look Sherlock directly in the eye and responds. “Well, maybe that’s the problem. Greatest fear isn’t failure, but that we’re more capable than we can imagine and so on.”

Sherlock frowns. It’s an odd statement, and it’s very classically Victor, that aspect of Victor that was always troubling, infuriating.

**

Sherlock lays awake that night in Victor’s spare bedroom, wondering if John had pulled this stunt to torture him, and decides that it’s likely. Sherlock and Victor had taken their time finding their way back to Victor’s flat, exhausting all of the relatively safe topics of conversation, before retiring separately. Sherlock hasn’t even removed his coat or shoes, hasn’t even disrupted the bedclothes. Victor had ended the evening with reminding Sherlock to help himself to anything in the flat. “I’ll probably be gone before you get up. I hope you don’t mind seeing yourself out.” He had given Sherlock a business card. “Let’s not let another decade go by.” His handshake had lingered.

Sherlock drifts off in spite of himself. He doesn’t hear Victor leave in the morning.

**

On the train from Norfolk to London, Sherlock fancies that he can sense the business card that Victor had given him burning through the leather of his wallet and the fabric of his coat. Sherlock also curses himself for such stupid thoughts. John is reading beside him, the same book that he had been reading when Sherlock had returned to the hotel room that morning. John had been sitting in a chair, bags packed, and not just his own but Sherlock’s as well, just waiting for Sherlock. John hadn’t said a word to Sherlock about Victor all morning, hadn’t said much of anything besides mentioning train schedules and asking Sherlock if he wanted anything to eat or drink. Sherlock would deduce that John was in one of his low moods if it were not for the blatantly obvious lie of the previous evening’s text message. John is fine, as fine as he is these days, or actually more than fine for once, because otherwise John wouldn’t have participated in any kind of ruse, much less one designed to get Sherlock to spend the night with someone else.

“It was entirely obvious, John. Anyone would have seen right through it.”

John responds with only an “mm hmm” without looking up from his book.

“Would you look at me when I’m talking to you?” Sherlock can’t cover his annoyance. The previous evening’s anomalies have left him vulnerable to mood swings; he ought to discard Victor’s card. John does close his book, though he leaves one finger on his page, and looks at Sherlock patiently. Sherlock has a mild desire to throttle John for tricking him into a conversation that not only involves feelings, but also has put the onus on Sherlock to carry the entire weight of it. Sherlock cycles through annoyance and then something as dreadful and precarious as hope; if John is actually preoccupied with something like Sherlock’s relationships with other people, then this could be a sign that he’s returning to his old ways, becoming more himself.

Sherlock opens his mouth to ask John why he cares, dismisses the question as having an entirely obvious answer, and decides to try to regain some sense of control by disguising the question as a statement instead. “What made you want to…interfere.”

“I wasn’t interfering; I was just giving you a bit of a nudge. Not even a nudge, just an….excuse to go after what you wanted.”

Sherlock pauses, considers. To bring up things from their past together is risky, full of possible unintended consequences. He gauges the likelihood of John reacting badly, then decides that his need to know outweighs the risks. “The last time you thought I might be becoming romantically involved with someone, you were concerned.”

“I know better now. You don’t need me to protect you. You’ve never needed me to protect you.” John shifts, turns his head toward the window.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten….?”

“That I thought you needed my protection and I acted accordingly? No. But I know better now. You’ve never needed me.”

Sherlock barely has time to process what John means before John apparently recognizes the weight of what he has just said and decides to do damage control. He turns away from the window and gives Sherlock a brief smile. “Except to give you a kick in the arse every once in a while.” He shrugs. “Anyone could see that there was a history of that sort between the two of you. But since you’re a stubborn git I gave a little shove.”

**

The next part of the conversation is bound to be excruciating, so Sherlock saves it for later that day, when he and John are both ensconced in 221b and there’s an opportunity for one or both of them to escape if the conversation becomes too uncomfortable. 

“Victor left me because my work as a consulting detective caused him considerable pain. Inadvertently on my part, of course.” He pauses. “He told me it was my new addiction.”

John looks up from the BMJ at Sherlock’s words, and gives a nod that implies that he’d like Sherlock to continue.

“I decided after he left that I would avoid forming attachments, since the work apparently came with risks to people I cared about.” Sherlock can’t continue. 

“It’s the epitome of being human. To try to avoid hurting people we care about, but it’s not something that we can guarantee.” John pauses, and at this point he’s looking into the fireplace instead of at Sherlock. “We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it, but we do, even when it’s not actually our fault.” John looks down and flips a page and waits for a beat. 

“Anyway…” and at this John returns his gaze to Sherlock, “Victor specifically contacted you to help him, and I think it’s safe to wager that he doesn’t hold any hard feelings towards you any longer.”

“So it’s that easy then?” Sherlock lets some of his derision into his tone.

“It’s never that easy, Sherlock. Especially since the next step is your’s to take.”

**

Victor is sitting in Sherlock’s chair in the sitting room of 221b, reading a newspaper, his coat draped over the back of the chair, an empty tea cup sitting on the floor next to him. 

Sherlock wants to pull him out of the chair and push him onto the couch. Sherlock wants to turn around and run down the stairs and out onto the street.

Sherlock does neither of these things.

“How did you get in?” It's a stupid question, but Sherlock is uncharacteristically tongue-tied.

Victor closes and folds the newspaper. “John let me in, of course. I had him drink some tea and sent him back to bed; he has the flu, which I’m sure you’re aware of.” Victor looks a bit guilty at the idea that his presence forced John to get out of bed. Victor doesn’t know that John wouldn’t have let him in if John didn’t like him and trust him. Sherlock would like to retire to the couch to contemplate if this is a sign of John’s recovery or if Victor is simply that remarkable. It’s possible that Victor would let him, would just return to his newspaper, that Victor, for all he’s changed (a vast increase in confidence) would slip back into old patterns with Sherlock, but then it occurs to Sherlock that a) he hasn’t eaten in two days, and b) he will settle himself right into Victor’s lap but then be paralyzed with fear to do anything more than sit and stare at Victor’s face if he doesn’t think up some kind of distraction.

“Are you hungry?”

Victor’s smile has increased in brilliance over the years, apparently. “Starving.”

**

Sherlock retreats to the kitchen under the pretense of brewing coffee, but really to give himself a moment to think and to look for evidence of any John-related activity. A cursory glance reveals that John had dragged himself from his room for a can of soup and orange juice. John has consumed food but not done the washing up, a sign that he felt well enough for the former but not the latter, and a sign that he likely won’t be back down again this evening. Satisfied that one problem can be shelved for now, Sherlock leans with his back against the sink, his hands gripping the countertop. Eventually he comes to believe that the only appropriate course of action is to slip back into old familiar patterns.

Victor is sitting on the couch now, which makes things slightly more convenient. Sherlock places his knees on either side of Victor, straddling him, and places one hand on Victor’s chest and gives a slight push, then leans in for a kiss.

Sherlock hasn’t kissed anyone in years, a fact that should be ameliorated by the fact that he’s kissing the last person he had kissed. But he’s out of practice and the kiss is too hard. 

The couch is also too narrow and Sherlock finds himself losing his precarious balance. Fumbling ensues until Victor is on his back and Sherlock is right on top of him, which is what Sherlock had thought that he wanted, but he now finds that locking eyes with Victor is entirely unnerving, even at the same time that it’s hard to break away. Sherlock manages to gather himself well enough that he carefully extracts himself and stands. “I…”

Victor pushes himself to a sitting position. “This would be easier if we dress for bed, hmm?” Victor stands and retrieves an attache case that he’s left next to the armchair Sherlock had found him sitting in. Sherlock had noticed the case before but he furrows his brow at the sight of Victor extracting pyjamas and a toothbrush.

Victor looks up at Sherlock’s puzzled face. “I didn’t want to look presumptuous.”

Sherlock laughs. “You’re a strange man.”

Victor grins. “It would seem then, that I’m in good company.”

Things have changed in the years since university. Desire simmers warm rather than flares hot. Sherlock is aware of the cliches but manages not to care. They’ve spent years apart, but the urgency has been replaced with understanding, and Sherlock relishes the opportunity to move slowly, to map out the hint of lines on Victor’s face, to travel familiar planes of Victor’s body. He should be desperate, frantically thinking of ways to keep Victor interested, to make Victor marvel, but he’s not. He’ll surely feel the dull ache of Victor’s absence  
if Victor disappears from his life again, but it will be infinitely worse, somehow, if they charge blindly in. 

Victor is apparently of the same mind. “Let’s just do this tonight, eh?” he says as he lightly trails fingers beneath the sleeve of Sherlock’s t-shirt. He looks exhausted yet content.

“You’re implying that there will be another night?” Sherlock can’t keep the question out of his voice.

“If I have my way, Sherlock Holmes, there’ll be many many more nights.”

Sherlock doesn’t ask Victor about his future plans, about Norfolk, about his father’s business. It’s easy enough to deduce that Victor has decided that he’s wasted enough years on the past.

Sherlock doesn’t begin to panic until Victor has drifted off to sleep. Sherlock lays behind him and has his arms around Victor’s still form. Memories are triggered by the feel of the soft cotton and the warmth of Victor’s skin, the scent that is particular to him alone. It’s the sense of a hunger being satisfied, one that Sherlock had thought was gone, that makes him ache. Sherlock stamps down the sense of fear by committing these moments and sensations to memory.

**

When he opens his eyes Sherlock notices that the sun is up and that he and Victor have drifted away from one another in their sleep. Victor has curled himself into a sort of fetal position, resting on his side, his knees drawn slightly up, his arms folded around the pillow that his head rests on. Sherlock determines that making coffee and returning to the bedroom with a cup for Victor wouldn’t be remiss.

When he walks into the kitchen John is sitting at the table with a cup of tea and is very slowly consuming a piece of dry toast. He looks marginally better; his fever has clearly broken. “And how was your night?” he asks, and Sherlock wants to tell him how terrified he is, or rather the strange mix of emotions that he can’t really define, except, of course, that’s not possible if he can’t exactly define them. Once Sherlock has set the coffee to brewing, he turns to address John properly and sees a slight smirk. “You’re enjoying this entirely too much; stop looking smug.”

John shrugs. “I’m just happy for my best mate.” He then raises a knowing eyebrow; Sherlock doesn’t have time to school his expression and hide the relief that those words produce. Sherlock exhales slowly; he may as well continue with unbridled honesty. “You never warned me that it could be this agonizing.”

“Well I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been in love.”

The admission is unprecedented but obviously truthful, and Sherlock makes a mental note to ponder it later. “I don’t understand it.”

John stands and gathers up his dishes. “An enduring mystery; right up your street.”

“I prefer the ones that I can solve eventually.”

“Really? Because you get bored again pretty quickly.” John heads to the sink and does the washing up quickly. As he finishes he dries his hands and then gives Sherlock’s arm a squeeze. “I’m here, if you need to….talk or whatever.”

Sherlock can only give a distracted nod. John goes back upstairs, and Sherlock, wanting to return to bed, to Victor, chooses instead to settle himself in a chair. Here are two people who are wanting him to have what he is alarmingly bad at, and probably doesn’t deserve. Both of these things shouldn’t be true, yet, here they are.

Sherlock feels paralyzed as he listens to Victor shuffle through the kitchen, as he watches Victor appear in the living room with two cups of coffee. “Thank you,” he murmurs as he accepts the proffered cup.

The silence is surprisingly companionable, but Sherlock knows he has to ruin it. “What’s changed, Victor?”

Victor doesn’t hesitate. “I suppose I have. I know what the work means to you, I know that that’s not going to change.”

“John…” and Sherlock doesn’t know how to explain to Victor why John is important. Victor isn’t dull like most people, won’t have any misconceptions about Sherlock and John, but it’s imperative that he understand.

“I know the value of friendship, Sherlock.” It’s a severe understatement, and Victor understands more than he’s letting on. 

“How long before your patience runs out?” It’s the question that encompasses everything, the question that has Sherlock clutching so tightly to his coffee cup that his knuckles are nearly white.

“You know Sherlock; I’ve had partners since you and I ended things, very nice men who left work at work and came home to me, who gave me space and didn’t infuriate me, who never so much as took a paracetamol, who were perfectly well-mannered in social situations, who never did experiments on me, who kept their psychological baggage wrapped up in easily managed parcels.”

“And?” Sherlock’s knuckles loosen slightly.

“And here I am. It seems that I’m not above managing my addictions as opposed to overcoming them.”

Sherlock takes a long sip of his now cool enough coffee before replying. “Most would say that you deserve better.”

“So be better.” Victor’s response is without hesitation.

“And still be Sherlock Holmes?” Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

“Truly a paradox worth your great mind, yes.”

Sherlock wants to tell him that he deserves to treat himself better as well, to sell his father’s business and move on. But Victor will see that as manipulation, and probably rightfully so. Sherlock has enough paradoxes to ponder at the moment.


End file.
